Restoring salmon habitat: estuary recovery, Squamish, B.C.

Restoring salmon habitat: estuary recovery, Squamish, B.C.

One of the key indicators, or the key species on the West Coast is the salmon.

It's just part of our culture.

Over the past 5 years,we've been looking at restoring salmon accessibility between the Squamish River and the central estuary for out migrating juvenile salmon.

The salmon drive the whole ecosystem on the West Coast, so having the work that we're involved with is an integral component of allowing nature to return.

And working with federal fisheries, working with the provincial government,working very closely with Squamish Nation and understanding the history of the estuary from their standpoint to try to figure out how do we mitigate the impacts of this 5 kilometer road.

We had already looked at the spit that we removed in 2020 to 2022. That, combined with crossings along the training berm.

Today we're at what we call the uppermost culvert, and we're replacing undersized corrugated steel pipes with large 3 meter by 3 meter concrete box culverts.

So this culvert in itself, will really allow flows from the Squamish River to reenter into the tidal central estuary and allow that whole tidal exchange that allows for the biodiversity and the function of a healthy estuary.

You know, the one thing that’s consistent in all restoration projects, is that there's partners involved, and what the Restoration Centre of Expertise provides is - it provides, biological expertise, engineering, and experts in contracting and construction sort of management, with the experience in applying it to habitat restoration.

It's so important for us, and I can't emphasize this enough, how important it is for the partnerships with federal fisheries, with First Nations, with the community, with the Province.

I am extremely ecstatic, blown away with enthusiasm that we've been able to achieve these major, significant alterations to this training berm.

When the water comes up and overtops what we've left behind this weir, immediately the ducks come, the seals come.

We often can see fish swimming over and it all becomes one giant ocean rather than split off with the river on one side and the estuary on the other.

I couldn't be more happy that we were successful at this stage in the work we've done to date.

It is extremely satisfying.